I love Wordle. I play it daily so I can write my today’s Wordle -Warm Column, but even though I got a new job as an astronaut or secret agent, I would still play it, still analyze my results, still obsessed with my average score.
However, I hate today’s game. Hate it so much that I have to use capital letters for weight.
Don’t worry, I didn’t fail. My line is still undefeated at 1,134. Well, at least theoretically – in practice it was a long time ago lost to Glitchiness in Nyt’s Games app, but I know I have played it every day since January 2022 and I know I’ve never lost. What is it? You weren’t worried about my line? Well, please.
No, I hate it because it has a specific format that acts as my personal cryptonite. And I’m no Superman.
Seriously, I seem to have a mental blind spot when it comes to solving the order like this one. And I’m not the only one – because today’s game has an incredibly high average score of 4.9.
Of course, I can’t say more about it without spoilers, so stop reading now if you haven’t played. Go and get some Wordle tips if you need them, complete the puzzle, then come back and find out why I hate it so much. Maybe you hate it too.
Spoilers for today’s Wordle, Monday 10 February 2025, follows below.
My least favorite Wordle format ever
Wordle is by nature a game of patterns. Certain letters are more common than others; Some appear more regularly in specific places; Some mate more easily with others. These rules create patterns and if you play the game regularly, you can learn to spot them. I dug into all this in my analysis of each Wordle response.
Today’s game has a good example of a particular pattern – and as I said above, it’s terrible.
The pattern in question is OO, as in Brook, Goose, Groom, Flooding and About 50 or Sowing Other Words that have either been or will be, Wordle replies.
Spoilers are coming now!
Today’s Wordle response is good and that’s it almost The most difficult OO word we have had so far, with an average of 4.9 according to Wordlebot, the in-game AI analysis tool.
The only more difficult OO game was Kazoo (5.1), which I don’t really count considering that it also has an unusual k and an unusual z, plus it is a stupid word added for new for any reason than wizard people.
Goody is just terrible, isn’t it? It’s not a good word – word games calculated. I mean what kind of person even says ‘goody’? A three-year-old, maybe, and they should see Bluey Or something rather than playing Wordle.
I probably wouldn’t mind if I had easily finished it, but I scored a five – the shame! – And it reminded me once again that I have a complete mental block when it comes to solving these words.
To prove how much I struggle with them, I did a small number of crushing. I have held a list of every Wordle I have completed (yes, I am a fun guy) and my average of 1,136 games so far is 3.67. Not too shabby.
However, it only looks at OO words, it jumps to 4.19 – more than half a guess higher! It’s even worse than my record on is -game, the second creepy Wordle format that my average is 4.18.
It’s not just me – honest!
And I’m not alone either. I have also held a record of Wordlebot’s average score for each game since it was launched in April 2022, and the global average is currently 3.96. But for oo -word it jumps to a mighty 4.29.
Admittedly, everyone else finds – word even harder to solve – the average that is 4.41. So while the rest of you are also struggling with OO answers, you don’t hate them as much as these are nasties.
Of course, the worst possible format for any Wordle would ever be a combination of OO and is, right? Oh yeah.
We have only had such a word so far, WOOER, back in September 2021 (game #78). It was far before anyone actually played Wordle, so I finished it only via the Wordle archive. And I lost.
In fact, it’s my only loss so far from all 1,333 Wordles. It’s not a proper loss because it wasn’t played ‘live’ – but it still ranks. Maybe you can now see why I hate OO words so much.
What is the problem here anyway?
Why is OO -word so difficult? Well, every repeated letter makes a wordle harder, but I don’t think that’s it like that. Or not just that. After all, as my analysis of each Wordle response shows, o is the second most likely letter to be repeated only behind A.
No, I suppose the problem is simply that it is a repeated vocal and that they are next to each other rather than split.
Vocals can go next to any other letter in general, making it much harder to narrow the characters on each side of it. And because you generally do not get two ‘A’s’, I or ‘U are together’, ‘O’s and’ E’s the only vocals that create this problem.
As an example, if you have a word with two LS together – also very common – you know that they are almost certainly preceded and followed by a vocals or a y (which in itself is sometimes a vocal). You wouldn’t get a word that was spelled -rlld or something -there will always be a vocals on each side of these ls. Same for most other letters.
But with a repeated O, it will have consonants on at least one side, probably both – and there are far more of them. Will it be an oom word as a gloom? An oon word like swoon? An OOP word like scoop? Will it be done by a r as in diet or a t as you stood? There are just too many options.
There is a similar problem with playing with is -word where it is incredibly difficult to find the first two consonants for cower or boxer or whatever. But at least I know to look for is -word. With OO words, they always catch me surprisingly, even though today’s is 29th so far.
So there you have it: That’s why I hate OO words. Tell me that in the comments below if you hate them too. I bet you do.
